


love is as love was (it's downhill from here)

by leetheshark



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Ableism, Drug Use, Homophobia, M/M, Mention of alcohol, Mentions of Brain Trauma, Murder, Parent Death, toxic parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/pseuds/leetheshark
Summary: Roman and Victor: from then to now.
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	love is as love was (it's downhill from here)

**Author's Note:**

> this is kind of... experimental. i wrote it last night when i couldn't sleep. hope you enjoy.

Victor tries weed for the first time when he's nineteen, when his parents meet with the CEO of Janus Corp. to discuss a merger and that CEO's unruly, beautiful son drags Victor to the roof to hang out.

Victor's curly black hair blows in the wind. "I want to keep my hair long," says the boy—Roman—blowing smoke out over Gotham City, "but my fucking parents won't let me."

"You should move out," Victor says. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You should move out," Victor repeats, because he's forgotten whether he said it already.

"My parents won't buy me my own apartment," Roman whines, as if that's a reasonable expectation. Maybe it is, for people that rich. Victor's family has money, but they're nowhere near the Sionis family's ballpark. Roman's parents own pretty much all of Gotham.

They probably already own apartments.

"Grow your hair anyway," Victor says. "Fuck your parents."

Roman looks at Victor with something new in his eyes. "Yeah? You think I should?"

"Yeah."

"You think I'd look good?"

"Yeah," Victor says. It feels like a confession, even though he didn't say anything of substance.

And that's when he realizes.

Oh fuck.

Am I gay?

A year later, he tells his parents. They love him, no matter what. Roman still hasn't told his parents that he's gay, but they've figured it out anyway. Roman kisses Victor once, champagne-drunk on New Year's Eve, but gets cold feet. He's terrified of something being wrong with him, because his parents think there's something wrong with him. They think that if he hadn't sustained the brain trauma he did as a child, he'd be normal. He'd be straight, and he'd do better in school, and he wouldn't embarrass them the way he can't seem to avoid, no matter what he does.

Victor's parents die when he's twenty-one. Roman avoids him for months. Later, he confesses that that kind of thing makes him uncomfortable. Victor forgives him, because he doesn't have anyone else left.

Victor kills for the first time when he's twenty-two. He doesn't tell Roman, but Roman figures it out, when he does it again. And again. And it's like life has meaning again.

It's weird. Victor realizes life doesn't have meaning, and it gives his life meaning. He guesses he's just different. He guesses maybe he's some kind of Messiah. Or maybe Roman is the Messiah, and Victor is his prophet. Victor likes the sound of that.

Roman is always talking about how he wants to kill people. His parents, his parents' employees, anyone who bumps into him on the street or looks at him wrong. Victor wants to do it for him.

He offers one night in Roman's apartment, when they're having coffee on the balcony, in the heady summer night.

"Victor," Roman says, with a new glint in blue-green eyes, "I think I love you."

Victor feels like a teenager again, blushing at his crush. They kill Roman's parents' butler a week later, just because. Victor still has blood on his face when Roman kisses him, for the second time in their lives. This time, Roman doesn't get cold feet.

This time—after the body and evidence are disposed of—Roman takes Victor into his bed, and it's the first time for both of them.

Victor bleaches his hair at Roman's suggestion. Then, he buzzes it off, because blood shows up starker against the blonde. Roman misses pulling Victor's hair in bed, but he gets used to it. Sometimes, when he's feeling particularly needy, he lets Victor pull his hair instead.

He tries growing it long, like he wanted to when they met, and he decides he doesn't like it.

Roman realizes, eventually, that the only way to break away from his parents for good is to make his own big break. That's what the Bertinelli diamond is for. He and Victor join up with some associates to kill the Bertinellis, and Victor has an _amazing_ time. When they still don't find the diamond, Roman trashes his own apartment and cries for three days, and Victor doesn't leave his side.

Roman finds other ways to grow his business, none of them legal.

That's how Victor ends up being captured and tortured for information about Roman. It's really not as big of a deal as it sounds. They pull two of his teeth and threaten to chop off some fingers. Victor spits blood in their faces and laughs. When Roman finds him, he shoots Victor's captors point-blank, takes Victor home, and calls his own personal doctor, whom he pays under the table. Victor's fine, except for the teeth. Roman buys him gold implants with the same pattern engraved on the back as Roman has on his gloves, slippers, and silk boxer-briefs: Roman's initials, with the big S in the middle.

Roman's mother dies, and Roman is only upset that he and Victor couldn't kill her. Roman's father sticks around, and Roman hates him more and more by the day.

Roman doesn't kill his father before he cuts him off. And just like that, no more inheritance. It's a stunning example of the dangers of procrastination. Roman would find it funny, if he weren't so fucking miserable.

Victor takes care of him, like he always does. When Roman returns home with the news of his disinheritance, Victor talks him down from trashing his apartment again and promises to kill his father. It's still too late, but it doesn't mean Roman won't enjoy it. Then, Victor draws Roman a bath, rubs his shoulders, and gives him a handjob. Roman may be explosive, but he's predictable. A lot of the time, he just wants to feel cared for. And Victor cares. He cares so much it scares him. Roman's the only person he _doesn't_ want to kill.

That night, Victor gets Roman ice cream from the freezer and they watch an old Western movie, because Roman likes those. He falls asleep during the movie, and Victor doesn't wake him up.

Roman's only happy the next morning until he remembers what happened, and they do the same song and dance all over again. Roman sobs into Victor's lap and hisses incoherently about killing his father. Victor pets Roman's hair and coos, "You don't need anyone else. You got me."

They find the diamond, this time, and then they lose it. It's not Victor's fault. Fuck you.

"I'm gonna get your diamond back," Victor says, an echo of the million times he's said before, _I'm gonna get your diamond._ "I promise." _I promise._

And Victor's gonna get that fucking diamond if it kills him.

It does.

Victor's on the floor of the Booby Trap, and he doesn't even know which of his wounds is bleeding out the fastest. Probably the one in his neck. Fucking Crossbow Bitch. The only thing he didn't anticipate about death is how _cold_ he feels.

Scratch that. The other thing he didn't anticipate is that he can hear Roman's voice.

"Friends. Brothers. Men of Gotham."

Victor thinks it's a hallucination, and then he realizes Roman is outside, and then he looks up and sees Roman kneeling over him and doesn't think it's a hallucination, even though Roman's voice is still coming from outside.

"I have funded you. I've protected you. I've scratched your backs and kept you out of jail," says the Roman outside.

"I want to keep my hair long," says the Roman inside, "but my fucking parents won't let me." He takes a pull of his joint and blows it over the Gotham skyline, and Victor thought they were inside and nowhere near the city, but this is nice, too.

Victor also thought it was night, but the sun glints in Roman's blue-green eyes. Something blocks Victor's vision. He tries to push his curly black hair out of the way, but he can't move.

"Victor," Roman says, "I think I love you."

Victor's vision goes fully black. And then he can't hear Roman, either, when the real Roman says outside, "Go show those little bitches you don't mess with Roman Sionis." He doesn't know Victor is dead, and he'll never find out.


End file.
